


Of Beds And Weather Conditions

by nhasablog



Category: Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sexual Tension, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 02:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11522508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhasablog/pseuds/nhasablog
Summary: Lucien has a less than innocent dream about Allen and he’s not entirely sure how to feel about it.





	Of Beds And Weather Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> Some vague mentions of alcohol and implied drug use, but nothing graphic, don't worry.

Lucien woke up sweaty, out of breath, and with a morning wood that put any of his previous ones to shame. He refused to do anything about it; not after the dream he’d had. It would be too much with the image of dream Allen, naked and hovering above him, still etched onto his mind.

This wasn’t the first time he’d dreamt about his friend in this manner, but it didn’t get much easier. The first time he’d blamed it on him having passed out while high, the second time because he’d been drunk, and the third- Well, he’d run out of excuses after a while.

He rolled over once enough time had passed so that his little situation had solved itself, and a second later he was sitting up, reaching blindly for the shirt he knew he’d discarded somewhere on the floor the night before.

It was Sunday, the calmest day of the week that always started with a coffee date with Allen, Jack and Bill at the usual café. They didn’t even have to plan it anymore, but every Sunday Lucien always woke up wondering if the others would show up. They always did, of course, but the thought never did cease crossing his mind.

He was only in a bit of a rush, but fortunately he didn’t really need to have any breakfast or anything before meeting them. He showered and got dressed quickly and arrived at the doors that led to the campus at the same time as Allen. He felt some sort of shame wash over him as he looked at his friend, but he played it off as nothing. “Morning, Ginsy.”

“Lu,” Allen replied, falling into stride beside Lucien easily, as if they’d done this all their lives. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not sure. The dreams I had made me feel as if I’d smoked too much yesterday.”

“But you didn’t smoke yesterday.”

“Exactly. It was strange.”

“Care to share?”

Lucien kicked a pebble out of his way. “Not really. You’d think me a lunatic.”

“I already do, Lu,” Allen replied with a grin that Lucien couldn’t look at for too long.

“Still, can’t scare you away now. We’ve got too much work to do.”

“You’d never scare me away,” Allen said quietly, and Lucien pretended he hadn’t heard him.

The others were already there when they walked in, barely looking up at their arrival. Bill had his face stuck in a menu as if he wouldn’t order the same thing as always, and Jack smiled briefly before continuing his examination of the room in fascination. He loved watching the people around them, even if they were usually the same boring people as every other Sunday.

Lucien sat beside Jack and Allen plopped down between him and Bill. “So what’re you having?” Allen asked.

Bill lifted a finger in his direction. “Thinking.”

“Sounds delicious.”

Lucien snorted, both of them earning an unimpressed look from Bill. Everything was pretty much as it always was, and yet Lucien couldn’t shake the feeling his dream had left in him. He hated it. Hated how something that hadn’t even happened for real could leave such a permanent mark.

He hid behind a menu of his own, his eyes roaming the limited breakfast options. “I’m thinking of getting something new,” he mumbled, forcing his face and voice to remain carefree. Nonchalant. “Are the eggs good or just a scrambled mess?”

“They’re usually a scrambled mess,” Jack piped up beside him. “But they’ve got their charm.”

“That’s my breakfast for today then,” he decided, setting the menu aside. He was all too aware of Allen’s body beside him. All too aware of the fact that he’d refused to look at him since they’d met up. Allen was bound to notice, and he didn’t know how to explain himself when he did.

“So what’s on the agenda for today?” Jack asked, blissfully ignorant of Lucien’s inner battle.

Lucien was waving the waitress over when he said, “Nothing planned. We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

He ordered his eggs. Bill ordered his eggs. Jack ordered his pancakes. Allen ordered the eggs that Lucien usually ordered (boiled for four minutes each, which didn’t make you popular among the people working there). They all got coffee. Lucien’s eggs were a scrambled mess, and he ended up switching breakfasts with Allen. Something told him Allen had known this would happen.

Sundays were calm, but Lucien’s mind was a tornado.

* * *

 

“Lu, are you doing all right?”

Lucien didn’t move nor did he remove the covers from his face. A few hours had passed since their uneventful breakfast, and Lucien had been hiding in his bed ever since he’d gotten back. He knew his behavior was unusual, seeing as he wasn’t the type to stay at home when something was bothering him. But he found the world too overwhelming today and decided to stay away instead. He wasn’t surprised that Allen had found him.

“I’m fine, Ginsy,” he replied beneath his sheets, aware that Allen was moving closer toward him by the second.

“Are you sure?” his friend asked, his voice coming from just above him now. “You’re not ill, are you?”

“No. Or maybe I am. I don’t know.” He slipped his hands out of the covers to lift them for emphasis, his right one colliding with Allen’s leg in the process. “I just have this sick feeling in my gut, but I don’t think it’s anything physical.” He sat up, the movement sudden even to himself. The room was too bright once the covers were off his face. “Do you know what I mean?”

Allen was basically radiating concern when Lucien looked at him. “I think I do. I call it existential dread.”

“Maybe that’s what it is.”

“It’s a rough state of mind.”

“I’ll live.”

“I don’t doubt you will.”

Lucien looked at the floor, the ceiling, the window, and then at Allen again. “Lie with me.”

“P-pardon?”

“Lie  _down_ with me. Come on.” Lucien scooted over and counted five seconds before Allen complied. Five seconds of hesitation. Five seconds to Lucien’s eternity. “Had you ever shared a bed with someone before you met us?”

“Not really.”

“You’ve missed something. This life is all about sleeping in places where you don’t really fit. In apartments where you barely know the resident. On benches where you could get robbed or even killed easily. In street corners just out of sight of the cops. Just ask Jack. He’s done it all. But then again, Bill once passed out in a random bathtub.”

“What’s wrong with your own bed?”

“Ginsy, being in your own bed means you value your own comfort zones too much, and that won’t get you anywhere. Adventure is out there and it includes strange sleeping places and sharing beds and couches and floors with people that you might not even know.”

“But you’re in your own bed right now.”

“True. But I might not be tomorrow or next week or next month. I might be on a ship or a beach or an apartment I’ve never been in before, struggling to find a comfortable position to get a few hours of rest. You never know. Life is unpredictable.”

“If you could have a bed to yourself every single night and still live this life, would you do it?”

Lucien didn’t reply instantly, because Allen’s question deserved a proper answer. “No. It would be too easy. It would take away important parts of this life. This is how we stay humble, you know.”

“That makes sense. I guess.”

“See, right now you’re in my bed, and you’ve already slept here before. One day you might be in Jack’s bed with or without him, or on his couch, or in his bathtub, or on the street outside his apartment, and you’re just gonna have to accept it.”

“Is the moral of all this to accept all the situations you end up in in this life?”

“More or less. Also to teach you to not be a snob.”

Allen snorted. “I’m not a snob.”

“Not yet.”

“I won’t ever be one.”

“I used to be one.”

“But you’re not anymore.”

Lucien looked at Allen, and his honesty was almost too much for him to handle. “I’m trying not to be.”

Their faces were closer than Lucien had anticipated, but he didn’t mind it. “I think you’re doing a great job,” Allen said, his breath hitting Lucien’s forehead.

His tornado was accompanied by a tsunami of too many feelings. Lucien had never been able to stand too many feelings.

So he did what he always did. He avoided them completely.

Sitting up, he said, “Let’s do something.”

Allen sat up too. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something. The day is running away from us.”

“You’re the one who’s been stuck in here. You don’t like the bed you chose, Lu? I thought you were all about accepting your current situation.”

He reckoned Allen had no idea just how much those words affected him. “Ginsy, come on. You can’t use my own words against me.”

Allen smirked. “I can when I get the chance to.”

“Cheeky. I’ll show you for that.”

Lucien was sure him pouncing on Allen and letting his fingers sneak into his shirt to scribble over Allen’s bare sides wasn’t helping the storm happening inside his mind at all, but that’s how he chose to evade the situation, and he was sticking to his decision. Allen was giggling in a way he only ever giggled when he was very much not sober, and Lucien was living for the sound. For someone who tried to act all put together in a world that was still so new to him, Allen giggling was absolutely hilarious - and a bunch of other words Lucien wasn’t ready to deal with just yet.

“No, wait, Lu, don’t!” Allen somehow managed to choke out between his laughter, though you could barely call it coherent.

Lucien couldn’t help but grin. “This’ll teach you to not be cheeky to Lucien Carr.”

“I’m sorry!”

“I don’t believe you’re sorry enough.”

Had someone walked in and seen Lucien sitting on top of Allen with his hands under his sweater while Allen squirmed beneath him on the bed he was sure Allen’s laughter would be the only way to explain what was going on, and therefore Lucien was grateful for his laughter. It was the only thing separating them from something entirely else.

Allen’s mouth was wide open and his head was thrown back as he laughed and laughed, and Lucien almost wished he had a camera. Allen’s struggling hands would make it hard to snap a picture though, and he eventually had to use one hand to fight them off while the other moved toward Allen’s bare stomach. It was hairier than Lucien had expected, but he once again didn’t mind.

He’d found that he didn’t mind a lot of things when it came to Allen.

“Stop it,” Allen mouthed, because the noise leaving his lips certainly didn’t sound like that. “Lu, please!”

Lucien sighed dramatically. “All right,  _fine_.” He removed his hands, but didn’t get off his friend just yet. “Now, what have we learned?”

Allen was gasping for air, and therefore didn’t reply immediately. Lucien only had to give his tummy another brief tickle for him to cry out, “To not be cheeky.”

“Exactly. You’re a fast learner.”

“And you’re mean.”

“Mean is overdoing it. I would think of myself as a business man. My job is to convince you that my way is the best way. I just convinced you.”

“You convinced me that you’re mean and a hypocrite.” Lucien could tell from Allen’s smile that he wasn’t too sore despite his words.

He plastered a grin on his face. “Careful, Ginsy. I’ve still got you trapped beneath me.”

Not for much longer, apparently.

Allen turned the tables so quickly and suddenly that Lucien was blinking up at him from where Allen suddenly had him pinned and still couldn’t properly understand it. Allen looked smug, and he was sure his own dumbfounded expression was just helping the smugness grow. “You were saying?”

Lucien huffed. “Don’t look so pleased about it. You took me by surprise.”

“Better accept the bed you’re in, Lu.”

“I’m never ever sharing my wisdom with you again.”

“Don’t make promises you know you won’t keep.”

Allen didn’t do anything to him. No tickling, no roughhousing, no nothing. He simply heaved himself off of him and let him go, and Lucien wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not.

He cleared his throat like the awkward moron he was. “Let’s go find the others. Accept our bed somewhere else.”

Allen didn’t reply, only smiled, and a heatwave had joined the storm and finally finished it off for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my [tumblr](http://nhasablog.tumblr.com) for tickle fics.
> 
> Here's my [tumblr](http://nhasasideblog.tumblr.com) for non-tickle fics.


End file.
